


A Thousand Splinters

by ZaliaChimera



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Abandonment, Aftermath, Angst, Anxiety, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Home, Hospitals, Injury Recovery, Introspection, Mental Health Issues, Mild Blood, Needles, Recovery, RvB Fluff Week, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Team as Family, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 21:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14173863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera
Summary: Wash wakes up alone.It isn't the first time. It isn't even the first time he's woken up alone in hospital.But he knows the Reds and Blues will come back for him. They'll come to get him, right?





	A Thousand Splinters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hinn_Raven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/gifts).



> Written for RvB fluff week with the prompt 'Wash figures out for the first time that the Reds and Blues actually do intend to keep him, no strings attached.'
> 
> This ended up a tad longer and more introspective than I'd expected.

He wakes up alone. His mouth tastes of rust and plastic and bile and every swallow burns. The light is harsh white and stings his eyes, and just the small movement of turning his head to examine the impersonal walls makes him ache, makes exhaustion flush through him.

He can move.

It takes a moment for that to hit him. He can move. More than just the minute twitches of his fingers; the only thing that had reminded him that he was still alive when they’d both fallen into silence. He can move! He clenches his hand into a fist just to prove that he can. His hand responds sluggishly; he can feel the tug of wires and what must be the IV line he can see out of the corner of his vision. He can move and he revels in the flex of muscle and sinew and bone. 

The elation of that simple action dulls the panic of waking up in a hospital. Or maybe it’s the drugs. He’s pretty sure that he should be in a lot more pain than a sore throat after- after-

His mind, always so easily unshackled from the bonds of the present, submerges for a moment in the memory of gunfire and cars and the spatter of blood across white armour. it’s only the angles, all wrong, that drag him out. Maine. That was Maine. Maine had got his throat shot out and not him not him not-

But it was him. Not Alpha’s fractured memories of Spiral. Not the dream he’s had every so often, where Sigma’s in his head and Maine is filled with as much spite and bitterness and rage as he had been.

It was him. 

He reaches up slowly and touches the bandages that are wrapped around his throat. He pushes his fingers gingerly against them, half expecting them to dissolve into more dream-stuff, but they are frustratingly real. 

The memories are too heavy, the relief too strong, for it to be anything other than real. His name is Washington, he is the leader of Blue Team, and he was imprisoned by a madman and shot in the throat.

His name is Washington, he is the leader of blue team and he is- 

He is alone.

He only registers it now, panic starting to creep in at the edges of his mind. The room is clean and white and empty. He grips the sheet, fighting to breathe as a swell of fear grips him. He’s alone. Where is he?

He has brief flashes of memory, waking up, doctors checking on him, a song stuck in his head, but memory can’t be trusted. Not always. 

What he does know is that he isn’t restrained. He can move his hands and- a quick wiggle proves that he can move his legs. What he does know is that the light isn’t all fluorescent. When he looks over at the other wall, there’s a window, natural light flooding in. A shame he can’t see out of it, just to prove it’s real. But he thinks it is. 

He has to find out what’s going on. He flexes his fingers a few more times until they feel like they belong to him again, and then reaches over to take out the IV. The tape peels away from his skin, and he eases the tube out of the back of his hand. It bleeds a little, but he’s had practice at taking them out and it stops quickly, leaving just a bloody smear on the bed sheet.

There’s a few wires that he just pulls off. They’d know as soon as he left the bed because of all the pressure sensors and the like, and there’s a camera in the corner. He takes a few breaths and then pushes himself into a sitting position. Even that winds him, but he isn’t about to let it stop him. He’s gone through worse. This is nothing.

Legs over the side of the bed, turn with them. his feet dangle over the edge. No-one has rushed in to force him back down yet. Either they’re not watching or they don’t mind. Whoever they are. His feet touch the floor. He lets out a soft hiss at the cold. It probably isn’t that cold really, but compared to the comfortable warmth of the bed, the floor might as well be ice.

He grips the edge of the bed and forces himself up onto his feet. The room spins, legs weak and wobbly and he has to keep tight hold of the bed to keep himself upright. He’s been out for a while then. Just a day or two wouldn’t have hit him like this.

He squeezes his eyes shut and breathes until the dizziness subsides. His legs remain locked. He doesn’t fall. And then it’s a wary step away from the bed, one foot in front of the other, unclench his hands from the edge. Learning to walk again is a painful process, but the injury was to his neck this time, not his spine. He can manage.

He heads to the window first, edging around the bed, always close in case he falls. Better to get an idea of where he is first. It seems to take a long time to get there, each step exhausting and making frustration prick at the corners of his eyes. 

He finally reaches the window and stares out of it. he wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see; a brick wall perhaps, or more likely a screen pumping in fake sunlight. Maybe a window for people to stare in at him like a specimen. He hadn’t expected to see the hazy lilac sky and glittering towers, or the garden all those floors below, with trees in full yellow bloom. 

He scrabbles his fingers beneath the latch of the window and wrenches it open so he can feel the air on his face. That’s the last test isn’t it? Harder to fake real air than sunlight. He breathes deeply. It’s warm but not hot or sticky, and this far up, must be twelve- fifteen stories, it tastes clear.

Once the first overwhelming flood of giddy relief reaches him, he takes a closer look. There are gaps where buildings should be, and he can see cranes a little further afield. The hospital garden is well maintained, but beyond that, he can see the ragged edges, where gardens has been long abandoned and only just pruned in to stop rampant plants from tearing up more of the roads. 

Chorus. He’s on Chorus. Kimball had sent photographs whenever she could, progress reports. But he’s never seen the rebuilding work with his own eyes.

Just knowing where he is leeches most of the tension out of him. Chorus is safe. As safe as can be for a planet that was in the middle of a bitter civil war two years ago, and at war with Charon even more recently. 

If nothing else, they don’t have the resources yet to play the sort of mind games that he’s all too familiar with.

He makes his way back to bed. The exhaustion is nearly overwhelming now, just from that short exertion. He climbs in and drags the covers over himself. He’s almost certain now that someone is watching through the camera, otherwise a doctor or a nurse would have come rushing in and that would have been overwhelming. Probably Doctor Grey then. She has always had a good handle on him. 

There’s a couple of cards, one from Kimball, one from the lieutenants, on the bedside table. But nothing from the Reds and the Blues. That makes him feel uneasy, but he’s quickly dragged down into sleep.  
—————

They should be here by now.

Grey had told him two days ago that the Reds and Blues were coming to collect him after his discharge, and since then he’s checked the time and their flight information roughly every half-hour. Today that’s increased to every fifteen minutes, then every five, until he’s sitting out here, in the hospital garden, staring at his data pad and watching the numbers tick over.

It shouldn’t affect him like this. He’s been alone for the last few days in the hospital, and it was not that long ago that he was alone most days, wondering if this was the day when they’d break him. Two years, maybe three. Part of him, a part that coils snake-like around his brain, glutting itself on nightmares and paranoia, reminds him that that is not long, not very long at all, and a day in solitary under the Counsellor’s gaze held more weight than any number of idle days of peace.

His brain hates him. He’s not that fond of it either. 

He sets down the datapad and the entirely unhelpful flight information on the grass next to him. He picks the datapad back up and glares at the clock which has moved through a grand total of three seconds. 

He clenches his fingers into the grass at his side and tries to focus on the feeling of the blades against his fingers. He’d been trying to do that before Temple- before- Back on the moon, he’d been working on it. Focussing on small things whenever his mind felt like it was shattering inside him. Focus on the moment and on the real, concrete things. 

There are approximately a million reasons why they haven’t arrived yet. He tells that to himself in Carolina’s sternest of tones. Maybe their flight was delayed. Maybe Caboose slept in or lost his helmet and they’ll be here tomorrow instead. 

Maybe there’s heavy traffic in the city, or someone got wind of their arrival and organised a parade. They’re heroes on Chorus. It wouldn’t be impossible.

Maybe their ship went down and the spaceport site just hasn’t updated with that information yet.

Maybe they don’t want him to know that not all of them got out. That this was the time when their luck ran out.

And then, like a particularly masochistic moth to a flame of bad ideas, what if they’re not coming?

Wash lets out a sharp breath and squeezes his eyes shut, fingers tightening around the datapad. He was supposed to be over this. It’s been years. Years since they picked up out of the snow, dusted him off and took him home, like the most ragged of alleycats. He’d thought it had ended then.

He’d thought it had ended when they didn’t walk away when Carolina had first shown up and Wash had been torn between duty and family and revenge and he didn’t even know which was which.

He’d thought he was over it when they’d shown up at the Fed base. He’d thought he was over it every time they returned from a mission. 

He should have been over it at the end of the war when Tucker had found him and asked if he was packed yet and had rolled his eyes when he saw Wash’s empty duffle still underneath the bed.

He’d been getting better and then there’d been that room and the scent of decay and the hours and hours locked in place until he alternated between thinking he was dead, and wishing that he was.

What if they’re not coming back for him? 

It makes a horrible sort of sense, even as part of him recognises how irrational it is. If they didn’t want him around, they’d tell him. Except what if they didn’t. What if they’d got back to their moon and realised that he wasn’t needed anymore. Surplus to requirements. 

It’s a sour thought that sits on his tongue and coats the back of his throat. It dulls the light and fills the garden’s shadows with spying eyes and whispers. 

He drags himself to his feet, exhaustion still coating his muscles. He hasn’t been allowed to train since he woke up and his brain origamis that into another stick to beat himself with.

The walk back to his room is long and he’s asleep as soon as his head touches the pillow.

—————

“Hey Wash!”

…

“Wash, c’mon.”

…

“Look, I know you haven’t slept in like, ten years but really?”

…

Wash doesn’t wake up alone.

He wakes up to someone insistently poking his arm and Lavernius Tucker’s face close enough that their heads nearly smash together when Wash sits up with a jolt and regrets the movement with every fibre of his being because fuck, that hurts.

Tucker sits back down, frowning at him. “Welcome back, sleeping beauty. Is that how you greet everyone?”

There’s a soft laugh and Wash turns, rather more sedately this time, to see Carolina sitting in the chair in the corner. She looks exhausted and he can see lines of pain etched into her face. 

“What?” he manages to get out. He hates the way that the word grinds in his throat, but Grey says that should clear up with time and practice. She’s a bit of a miracle worker. 

“I told you not to wake him up, Tucker,” Carolina says.

“I didn’t know he was going to try to headbutt me.” There’s a petulant note to Tucker’s voice.

Wash squeezes his eyes shut, the sound of their voices so close overwhelming after days of mostly silence, interrupted by the occasional bustling nurse and Grey’s check-ins. He takes a breath, shoring himself up in case he opens his eyes and they’re not there. Irrational, he knows, when he can hear their breathing, but too familiar to give up. Not yet.

He opens his eyes to look again. They’re still there. Solid. Real. He can see how the sunlight from his little window drips caramel over Carolina’s hair, and how the bed dips where Tucker leans against it, the sheets wrinkling.

“When did you-“

When did they arrive? When did they get here? When did they decide that- that he was worth coming back for?

There’s still time, that splintered part of himself says, still time for them to explain that they’re leaving him, that this is just a courtesy, because if he can’t protect them, and he couldn’t, then he’s no use to them.

Still time for this to crash down around him.

“We landed a couple of hours ago,” Tucker says. He drags a hands across his face and Wash can see the tiredness there too now. 

“Caboose lost his helmet,” Carolina adds.

The amusement he hears from her crushes down that broken little bit of his mind. 

“And then we had to check we hadn’t left the stove on,” Tucker adds. “No-one wants a repeat of last time.”

“Oh.” It is a wholly inadequate word to respond with when he feels light headed and weak, like a whole lifetime’s worth of rocks have been taken off his shoulders.

“Yeah. Sorry we’re late.”

“No!” Wash says, torn between who he should towards first. he wishes they were sitting closer together.

They never said they came back for _you_ , is what his mind says. 

“You’re both- both safe,” Wash says instead, squashing the thought further down.

“Hell yeah we are!” Tucker says. “Big damn heroes!” There’s a brittleness in his voice that belies the enthusiasm.

“We’re fine,” Carolina says. She leans forward, elbows on her thighs. “We’re here.”

The preciseness of how she says it squeezes the fractured thing like a sponge, crushes the poison out of it.

“Yeah,” Wash agrees, giving a small smile. He’s out of practice but he thinks it’s a bit like riding a bike. You don’t forget. “You’re here.”

They came for him. They’re here. They came for him and they’re here and-

“Grey says that you- whoa, are you- are you crying?” Tucker says. He’s in Wash’s face again, mingled confusion and concern. “I mean, I know it’s a real hardship being separated from my exceptional good looks but-“

Wash bats him away and brushes at his eyes. “It’s nothing. Still recovering.”

Tucker shares a glance with Carolina, too quick for Wash to read, before he’s looking back at Wash. “Grey said you could leave but if you’re not well we can wait.”

Wash shakes his head, already trying to climb out of bed. Tucker’s hand comes to rest against his shoulder and Carolina’s next to him in a second, her war palm against the small of his back. He should shake them off; he’s not weak. He can do this himself.

He lets them help him to his feet instead and by the time he’s done he has his shuddering breath back under control. 

“Where are the others?” he asks, when they’ve decided that he can stand without collapsing. They’re still hovering and he doesn’t mind. Not this time.

“Grey kind of set a rule that no more than two of us could be in the building at the same time,” Tucker admits. “Something about wanting the building to last more than six months.”

Wash gives a startled snort of a laugh. “Better get out of here then before Caboose shows up.”

“I mean, you’re out of bed now.” Carolina says.

“Yeah, I think that makes three,” Tucker replies.

The vice around his chest eases another notch. “I don’t have anything except my armour,” Wash says. His gaze falls on the bedside table and the cards. They feel less lonely now that Tucker and Carolina are here. “And those.”

“We’ll get someone to pick up your armour,” Carolina says. Her fingers brush against his as she carefully collects the cards.

Tucker throws open the door and glances back at him. “Do you need a wheelchair?”

“No. I’m okay.”

He’s okay. He thinks it might be true.

Carolina falls in behind him and Wash pauses in the doorway, glancing back at the uncertain white room. “Where are we going?”

He has to know. He has to ask, to banish that last fleck of doubt.

Tucker hesitates and gives him a quizzical look. “Where do you think? We’re going home.”

The feeling bubbles up in Wash’s chest, making his eyes sting again. But it’s not a tight feeling. It’s freeing, something settling, finally settling inside him. He isn’t alone. They came back for him. They came.

“Yeah,” he says and takes that first step out of the door. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
